KISSIMMEE — A felon convicted of defacing a Virginia synagogue pleaded guilty today to illegally carrying a firearm as a member of the neo-Nazi American Front group, according to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office.

Christopher Brooks will serve a mandatory three-year prison term for possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, said Assistant State Attorney Steve Foster.

Brooks, 27, of St. Cloud, is the first of 14 members of the American Front to plead guilty after their arrests earlier this year in a domestic terrorism case by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Identified as a racist skinhead group, American Front members were arrested on multiple charges concerning paramilitary training in Holopaw for what they believed was an inevitable race war, records show.

Photographs taken by a government informant showed Brooks and other members firing handguns and AK-47s at the group's headquarters in eastern Osceola County, according to prosecutors.

Brooks was arrested in April 2009 and later convicted of defacing a synagogue in Norfolk, Va. As a felon he is prohibited possessing a firearm.

Brooks and many other members of the group have numerous Nazi tattoos.

The investigation of the American Front began several years ago after an undercover investigation of links between white supremacists and outlaw bikers in Central Florida drew attention to the group's activities.

Brooks has not agreed to testify against other members of the group, according to the state attorney's office. His original charges included participating in paramilitary training, conspiracy to shoot into a building, possession of a weapon by a felon and violation of probation in Virginia, records show.